1. Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to personal advisor services and online or telephone-based services, and in particular to systems and methods for allowing personal information of an end user to be employed while also maintaining privacy to help people run their lives more efficiently by, for example, providing offers, recommendations, giving advice and/or proactively locating and identifying opportunities, such as transactions, providers, products and/or services that may be of interest to the end user, based on expressed and/or unarticulated needs of the end user.
2. Description of the Related Art
The interne has been a great medium to distribute news and information widely. Many companies put their product or service brochures on the internet in the hopes of generating business from the multitudes of people who access the interne. However this plethora of information on the internet is also one of its challenges. Providers of products and services need to find ways in which prospective online buyers can find them through the flood of information on the internet. This need is acute enough that these providers buy keywords on search sites or otherwise buy ads to reach these prospective buyers.
Conversely, prospective buyers have the challenge that they need to filter through the cacophony of all these businesses, very often touting inconsistent criteria, each trying to catch the buyers' attention to find the ones that are most suited to meeting their needs. In the physical world this constant, behind-the-scenes filtering and selecting is one of the most important functions that buyer-side brokers, agents, or advisors fulfill. These advisors, typically focusing on a specific business such as home mortgages, take it upon themselves to track the various sellers of products and services in that specific business.
Another challenge that prospective buyers, both online and offline, face has to do with timing. They have to track the most appropriate time to look for the most appropriate sellers of products and services. So for example a user needs to know that mortgage rates are lower than what he is currently paying. This converts him to a prospective buyer who with this knowledge starts his search for the most appropriate mortgage. Very often the timing and choice of provider are related making the problem more complex for the poor user. So for example it is possible that the mortgage rates quoted to him from different companies are spread over his current mortgage rate. So the question, “are mortgage rates lower than what I am currently paying” translates to the more complex question, “is there a mortgage provider who is quoting lower rates than what I am currently paying”.
Some of the best advisors are not only experts in a particular industry and track sellers of products and services in that industry but they also do that as an ever-watchful surrogate of their customer and within the context of their customer's specific situation. The value to users is peace of mind that there is an expert who is constantly watching out for their interests. In the example above, users do not have to worry about tracking mortgage rate trends and they do not have to worry about tracking the offers from multiple providers. For any given risk profile, their mortgage rates will be as good as their advisor.
The users have to disclose information to their advisors so that the advisors can track the industry on their behalf. The advisors have to be paid for their services, very often from the users and sometimes from the service providers with whom the user completes a transaction, for example with whom the user refinances their mortgage.
By sharing information with the advisor, the user is making possible the expression of an unarticulated need. This unarticulated need is a function of the user's state at any point juxtaposed against a changing world. In the example above, the need to refinance may be an unarticulated need. When the advisor has the user's personal information, such as the user's current mortgage rate, the advisor can take the user's articulated or unarticulated need (to refinance), compare the user's current mortgage rate to the mortgage rates at any point, and whenever mortgage rates dip below the user's then current rate, the advisor can create a refinance opportunity that is good for the user, good for the advisor, and good for the lending financial institution. The constant tracking and comparing results in improvements in the user's state, and in this case may result in multiple refinance events, certainly more so than if the user took the onus of tracking multiple mortgage providers and their changing rates.
Another challenge that prospective transaction providers (e.g., prospective product or service providers) face is distinguishing between online users simply looking for information and online users that are interested in buying something. In general, the second type of online user is of more interest to businesses; however, at present both types of online users are generally treated the same.